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What impact will X-Rite’s acquisition of Pantone have?
September 5, 2007
Question: What impact (if any) will X-Rite’s acquisition of Pantone have on printers?
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Answered by prepress expert Ron Roszkiewicz:
The recent announcements of X-Rite’s www.xrite.com/home.aspxacquisition of Pantone and yesterday’s announcement of new products from Pantone seem to hold some positive implications for printers and designers.
According to Pantone, the new suite of products and services is the result of 45 years of listening to all of their users and blending the feedback into the next logical step. Obviously, the orignal Pantone Matching System (PMS) is well established and any radical change to numbers or formulations would cause widespread brand-identity chaos. To mitigate any potential confusion, Pantone is releasing a new library of colors called the Goe (pronounced "Go") System designed to work parallel to PMS. Release is scheduled for October 1. (The soon-to-be-mailed September print edition of Graphic Arts Monthly features Goe as a "Product SpotLight.")
Covering the Bases
Pantone also listened to printers, paper and ink manufacturers. Besides the fact that designers can now use 2,058 new colors in their creative palette and get matching output on press, printers will be able to offer them with more efficiency. The greatly expanded palette requires only 10 ink mixing bases. The overall numbering system is based around 165 full-strength colors and the color families derived from them.
Stock Answer
One of the outstanding issues was that the PMS color chips were presented printed on cover stock. In the Goe System, they are printed on standard bright white No. 1 grade, 100-lb. coated offset text stock. In addition, they asked for more ink mixing efficiency, more readily available ink mixing bases that are environmentally safe, inks that are compatible with aqueous and UV coatings. The resulting ink film thicknesses allow for equal drying times and more control matching color on press.
Spreading the Ink and the Word
Included in the Goe System suite of products is a book of GoeSticks with adhesive color chips and plastic pasteboard for temporary palette building and cards for more permanent palette organization and archiving; myPantone software for interactive computer palette building; and myPantone.com www.pantone.com/pages/mypantone/mypantone.aspx, a comprehensive color portal for trading palettes, news and tips. GoeSticks will certainly help analog communications when needed between prepress, designers and pressmen. myPantone will provide new ways to explore color and use in digitally. myPantone will evangelize the use of color for all media and serve as an inspirational touchstone for content creators that can only benefit print and content consumers in the future.
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Posted by Mark Vruno on September 5, 2007 | Comments (0)
